Feature requests

[Ben Wilson]

Given how apterous categorically isn't Countdown- it even says so on the front page- can we have an option to change the background/letter colour of the tiles?

[Rhys Benjamin]

The ability to block/unblock people from their userpage would be cool, so I don't have to wait for them to come online again.

[JimBentley]

Completely non-essential, but could the list of Happenings on the title page default to Happenings from the last 24 hours, rather than the latest 20 Happenings? Usually I only get chance to log in once a day and if there's been a game with lots of comments, the Happenings often go back only a couple of hours or so.

[Matt Morrison]

Completely non-essential, but could the list of Happenings on the title page default to Happenings from the last 24 hours, rather than the latest 20 Happenings? Usually I only get chance to log in once a day and if there's been a game with lots of comments, the Happenings often go back only a couple of hours or so.

I know what you mean, it's not perfect - but nor's that. Otherwise people who've been away from the site more than 24 hours (come on, we all have to do it sometimes) won't be able to catch up.

The best solution is, typically, the one that would involve Charlie doing the most work - i.e. it just amalgamates things into one entry, such as "Innis Carson's 140-115 game with Adam Gillard received 2 nominations for Game of the Week and 7 comments" which would be SWEET.

[Gavin Chipper]

I was thinking a hyper variant where the number distribution is the same as in normal. So still 8 numbers, but only 4 large (25, 50, 75 and 100) and only 2 of each small rather than the slightly annoying 3 we have now.

[Thomas Carey]

Lockdown Junior, please.

Also, not sure if this would be any good, but Goatlette, Goatilops, and Spoilgoat?
(You may change the names if you wish.)

[Charlie Reams]

(You may change the names if you wish.)

Thanks so much!

[Charlie Reams]

(You may change the names if you wish.)

Thanks so much!

[Rhys Benjamin]

So good you had to say it twice.

[Thomas Carey]

(You may change the names if you wish.)

Thanks so much!

Lol, still not sure if those three are a good idea or not.
Still, please give us Lockdown Junior.

[Charlie Reams]

Still, please give us Lockdown Junior.

17th of each month is New Variant Day. Will it be Lockdown Jnr? Tune in to find out!


(Yes.)

[Thomas Carey]

Still, please give us Lockdown Junior.

17th of each month is New Variant Day. Will it be Lockdown Jnr? Tune in to find out!


(Yes.)

Thanks, thought you just rolled new variants out whenever you could be bothered. Good system, that.

[Gavin Chipper]

17th of each month is New Variant Day.

Really? Where did that come from? Is this because you're so kooky and random? You'd get on with Sophie Krol!

[Charlie Reams]

17th of each month is New Variant Day.

Really? Where did that come from? Is this because you're so kooky and random? You'd get on with Sophie Krol!

As of February, I decided it was a good way to remind myself to do stuff. (17 Feb is my birthday.)

[Matt Morrison]

17th of each month is New Variant Day.

Really? Where did that come from? Is this because you're so kooky and random? You'd get on with Sophie Krol!

As of February, I decided it was a good way to remind myself to do stuff. (17 Feb is my birthday.)

And my mum's, which I'm sure you haven't forgotten. If you like, you can remind yourself to do my mum. Would that help?

[Rhys Benjamin]

17 Jan is my mum's birthday.

[Ryan Taylor]

Your mum's a fucking whore!

[Matt Morrison]

Your mum's a fucking whore!

Me and Rhys aren't brothers. Further clarification required.

[Thomas Carey]

What is the url (is there even one?) for the apterous podcast? When it disappears off the News thing it will be gone forever. Please change.

[Ben Wilson]

What is the url (is there even one?) for the apterous podcast? When it disappears off the News thing it will be gone forever. Please change.

Or make a new one.

[Thomas Carey]

Still, please give us Lockdown Junior.

17th of each month is New Variant Day. Will it be Lockdown Jnr? Tune in to find out!


(Yes.)

So...

[Gavin Chipper]

Since it ended up getting booted into another thread (by accident?) I'm going to repeat what was said here.

I think it would be a good idea to have a numbers only duel once a week (which can be any variant). It's probably come up before, but I'd probably have fewer conundrums in most of the duels. I find it a bit annoying when I think I'm doing quite well and then a conundrum comes along and can make or break (usually break) the whole thing. So I'd have no conundrums at all most of the time (certainly lots of the time anyway). I think you could polarise it a bit more so that you either have no conundrums or loads of them.

I think it would be generally good to have duels every so often that are quite specific in the skills they use, which might spread out the winners a bit more.

[Adam Gillard]

Lockdown Jnr in all the "Most multitalented" leaderboards please. (Basically I'm hoping to leapfrog Matthew for 15 minutes of fame at the top of the numberists leaderboard).

[Rhys Benjamin]

Have we ever had a duel in Spoilage?

[Soph K]

Have we ever had a duel in Spoilage?

i think so

[Rhys Benjamin]

Have we ever had a duel in Spoilage?

i think so

No we haven't.

[Rhys Benjamin]

How about a scoring variant where you multiply the number of letters by itself to get the points? (i.e. 1-letter-words score 1 point (cos 1 x 1 = 1), 2-letter words score 4 points (cos 2 x 2 = 4) etc.) This would encourage people to go for longer words to get a greater points differential and this would encourage mistakes! Especially if someone needs 81 points from a dodgy 9, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis would be now worth 2,025 points! This is amazing!

[Mark James]

Have we ever had a duel in Spoilage?

i think so

No we haven't.

If you knew the answer why did you ask? That's really annoying. When I was in school someone asked me what class did we have next. I said "not sure, english I think" and then he said "no, its maths". wtf!

[Ryan Taylor]

If you knew the answer why did you ask? That's really annoying. When I was in school someone asked me what class did we have next. I said "not sure, english I think" and then he said "no, its maths". wtf!

Ha, yep exactly. Although I was searching YouTube for a clip from Only Fools and Horses where Trigger says "why ask?". It's clearly not that famous a clip to get onto YouTube but it sticks in my memory as being quite funny!

[Soph K]

yeah totally agree with you both - wth rhys, why ask something you know the answer to? and dont say that you looked it up on apterous after you asked the question because i'd only say "why ask something then look it up when you already know you can look it up?" TBH its so dumb its funny lol. honestly...i worry about you sometimes!

[Adam Gillard]

yeah totally agree with you both - wth rhys, why ask something you know the answer to? and dont say that you looked it up on apterous after you asked the question because i'd only say "why ask something then look it up when you already know you can look it up?" TBH its so dumb its funny lol. honestly...i worry about you sometimes!

Like

[Soph K]

Thank you very much!
lol

[Rhys Benjamin]

Has ANYONE read the scoring request yet^?

[Joseph Krol]

Has ANYONE read the scoring request yet^?

I have, what is your idea for numbers and conundrums?

[Rhys Benjamin]

Stepdown x stepdown for nums and cons.

Let's take the first episode and rescore it under my scoring.

Round 1: 49 - 49
Round 2: 49 - 85
Round 3: 74 - 110
Round 4: 83 - 110
Round 5: 83 - 159
Round 6: 108 - 184
Round 7: 133 - 209
Round 8: 133 - 218
Round 9: 133 - 318.

[Mark James]

Has ANYONE read the scoring request yet^?

Yes, It's awful. All it would do is give me another reason not to play spoilage.

[JimBentley]

Has ANYONE read the scoring request yet^?

Yes, I read it but thought it was so stupid that you must have meant it as a joke. Now I realise you were being serious, I think it's probably your silliest idea yet (although competition in this area is pretty fierce).

[Ryan Taylor]

Has ANYONE read the scoring request yet^?

I thought the none-response from people kind of hinted what was collectively thought. It's fucking shit (as everyone else has said). There is absolutely no point to it whatsoever.

[Gavin Chipper]

Has ANYONE read the scoring request yet^?

I thought the none-response from people kind of hinted what was collectively thought. It's fucking shit (as everyone else has said). There is absolutely no point to it whatsoever.

It's the sort of scoring system I would expect to come from someone whose views on voting systems are likely to be suspect!!!

[Matt Bayfield]

I think it would be a good idea to have a numbers only duel once a week (which can be any variant). It's probably come up before, but I'd probably have fewer conundrums in most of the duels. I find it a bit annoying when I think I'm doing quite well and then a conundrum comes along and can make or break (usually break) the whole thing. So I'd have no conundrums at all most of the time (certainly lots of the time anyway). I think you could polarise it a bit more so that you either have no conundrums or loads of them.

Gev, I strongly disagree with everything quoted above. I would prefer most Duels to have a mix of L, N and C rounds, with only very occasional Conundrum Attacks, Numbers Attacks, or Letters Attacks. Although ultimately, regardless of what I'd personally enjoy the most, I would like the Duels to be the best compromise to please as many apterous users as possible. And considering that we had a survey on Duels a year or so ago, I imagine this goal is already satisfied, even though it's not perfectly tuned to a Numbers expert like yourself, or a Letters/Conundrum enthusiast like me.

As for there being too many Conundrums and not enough Numbers, Statland suggests that of the 6million+ rounds played on apterous, Letters rounds account for 58% of all rounds, and Numbers rounds and Conundrums each represent 21%. What I find interesting here is that the %ages for Numbers and Conundrums are the same. When you bear in mind that in the most popular format (a normal 15-rounder), the ratio of N:C is 3:1, then outside of 15-rounders, a lot of apterous users are going out of their way to play Conundrum-heavy formats rather than Numbers-heavy formats.

[Gavin Chipper]

I think it would be a good idea to have a numbers only duel once a week (which can be any variant). It's probably come up before, but I'd probably have fewer conundrums in most of the duels. I find it a bit annoying when I think I'm doing quite well and then a conundrum comes along and can make or break (usually break) the whole thing. So I'd have no conundrums at all most of the time (certainly lots of the time anyway). I think you could polarise it a bit more so that you either have no conundrums or loads of them.

Gev, I strongly disagree with everything quoted above. I would prefer most Duels to have a mix of L, N and C rounds, with only very occasional Conundrum Attacks, Numbers Attacks, or Letters Attacks. Although ultimately, regardless of what I'd personally enjoy the most, I would like the Duels to be the best compromise to please as many apterous users as possible. And considering that we had a survey on Duels a year or so ago, I imagine this goal is already satisfied, even though it's not perfectly tuned to a Numbers expert like yourself, or a Letters/Conundrum enthusiast like me.

As for there being too many Conundrums and not enough Numbers, Statland suggests that of the 6million+ rounds played on apterous, Letters rounds account for 58% of all rounds, and Numbers rounds and Conundrums each represent 21%. What I find interesting here is that the %ages for Numbers and Conundrums are the same. When you bear in mind that in the most popular format (a normal 15-rounder), the ratio of N:C is 3:1, then outside of 15-rounders, a lot of apterous users are going out of their way to play Conundrum-heavy formats rather than Numbers-heavy formats.

Although numbers is my preferred type of round, my point was meant to be more general than just "Have more numbers-based duels" and that we could have more duels that are heavily weighted in any direction rather than all duels being quite similar.

We have a duel every day, so I think it would be wrong to think we have to end up with a compromise every day so that most people are mildly pleased each day but have little variation. I'm sure everyone has their own preferences and I think you'd please more people by catering for these on some occasions even if most of the duels still are quite evenly distributed with LNC. I think more variation in the duels is better and it would also probably produce a bigger range of winners.

So yes, there needs to be compromise in the rounds we have, but I think that compromise can be spread across the duels rather than within each one. Having said that, I would only argue for a minority of duels to have just one type of round. Maybe once a fortnight even for all letters, all numbers and all conundrums, so 3 out of 14.

[Matt Bayfield]

Ok, I agree with the principle of variation between Duels.

Where we differ in view is that I think we already have plenty of variation across time limits, number of rounds, and variants, as well as LNC permutations - and this is endorsed by the fact that we have quite a large range of winners - e.g. it's not just Innis & Kirk all the time. I also think one extremely Numbers-heavy Duel and one extremely Conundrum-heavy Duel per fortnight is way too much, and if anything this would reduce the number of different winners in the long run. Referring back to that statistic that 21% of rounds chosen to be played by users are N, 21% are C, and 58% are L, there should perhaps be three times as many Letters-heavy Duels as Numbers-heavy or Conundrum-heavy. So if we had e.g. one Letters Attack Duel per fortnight, I reckon there should only be one Conundrum Attack or Numbers Attack about every six weeks.

Basically, I think the current variation in the Duels is pretty good, and I would be reluctant to see it change.

[Gavin Chipper]

I think you could have comments allowed on more pages - e.g. duel results.

[Soph K]

I think you could have comments allowed on more pages - e.g. duel results.

forgive me if im being thick but i dont really know what you mean......?

[Ian Volante]

I think you could have comments allowed on more pages - e.g. duel results.

forgive me if im being thick but i dont really know what you mean......?

I think what he would like is comments allowed on more pages.

[Soph K]

I think you could have comments allowed on more pages - e.g. duel results.

forgive me if im being thick but i dont really know what you mean......?

I think what he would like is comments allowed on more pages.

oh right. i think i get it.

[Charlie Reams]

"why ask something then look it up when you already know you can look it up?"

I think you could have comments allowed on more pages - e.g. duel results.

Yeah it would be nice, unfortunately it's a reasonable amount of hassle to add it to different types of pages so I've focussed on the most popular ones.

[Soph K]

"why ask something then look it up when you already know you can look it up?"

a-lol, i have to admit, that is quite funny!

[Thomas Carey]

How about a scoring variant where you multiply the number of letters by itself to get the points? (i.e. 1-letter-words score 1 point (cos 1 x 1 = 1), 2-letter words score 4 points (cos 2 x 2 = 4) etc.) This would encourage people to go for longer words to get a greater points differential and this would encourage mistakes! Especially if someone needs 81 points from a dodgy 9, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis would be now worth 2,025 points! This is amazing!

I think this would actually be quite cool (i know i'm late, i've been on hoiday!) and if you don't want to play it, then don't! Actually this would be a great way to encourage mistakes

[Steve Balog]

I have a bit of a bizarre idea for a new format. It came to me when I caught one of those "[name] got a 9 from GANDISEEG, can you?" messages in chat and got the answer, but realised that if I didn't know there was a 9 I'd never have declared it from the selection.

It works just like a normal game, scoring and all but with one difference: There's an indicator on screen that, after the selection, tells you whether or not a 9 is possible with the selection. I definitely attack conundrums differently from typical letters, so that knowledge might cause a player to attack a letters set differently, for better or worse.

Numbers works similarly: The indicators, after the numbers are selected, tells you whether the target is exactly obtainable or not.

Conundrums are the same. No way to adapt this idea to those rounds.

I don't know, I might be drunk off my ass and this is a fucking idiotic idea (with coding issues, to boot) but I'd figure there's no harm in throwing it out there.

[Soph K]

I have a bit of a bizarre idea for a new format. It came to me when I caught one of those "[name] got a 9 from GANDISEEG, can you?" messages in chat and got the answer, but realised that if I didn't know there was a 9 I'd never have declared it from the selection.

It works just like a normal game, scoring and all but with one difference: There's an indicator on screen that, after the selection, tells you whether or not a 9 is possible with the selection. I definitely attack conundrums differently from typical letters, so that knowledge might cause a player to attack a letters set differently, for better or worse.

Numbers works similarly: The indicators, after the numbers are selected, tells you whether the target is exactly obtainable or not.

Conundrums are the same. No way to adapt this idea to those rounds.

I don't know, I might be drunk off my ass and this is a fucking idiotic idea (with coding issues, to boot) but I'd figure there's no harm in throwing it out there.

Not a bad idea actually.

[Jon O'Neill]

I have a bit of a bizarre idea for a new format. It came to me when I caught one of those "[name] got a 9 from GANDISEEG, can you?" messages in chat and got the answer, but realised that if I didn't know there was a 9 I'd never have declared it from the selection.

It works just like a normal game, scoring and all but with one difference: There's an indicator on screen that, after the selection, tells you whether or not a 9 is possible with the selection. I definitely attack conundrums differently from typical letters, so that knowledge might cause a player to attack a letters set differently, for better or worse.

Numbers works similarly: The indicators, after the numbers are selected, tells you whether the target is exactly obtainable or not.

Conundrums are the same. No way to adapt this idea to those rounds.

I don't know, I might be drunk off my ass and this is a fucking idiotic idea (with coding issues, to boot) but I'd figure there's no harm in throwing it out there.

The %age of rounds where there is actually a 9 being what it is might make this a little redundant though because it's so similar to the regular format.

However, it does give rise to an idea that may have been mentioned already on here.. that you get told the max as soon as the ninth letter appears, and then conundrum rules take over with the first person getting a word of that length winning the round.

[Charlie Reams]

I have a bit of a bizarre idea for a new format. It came to me when I caught one of those "[name] got a 9 from GANDISEEG, can you?" messages in chat and got the answer, but realised that if I didn't know there was a 9 I'd never have declared it from the selection.

It works just like a normal game, scoring and all but with one difference: There's an indicator on screen that, after the selection, tells you whether or not a 9 is possible with the selection. I definitely attack conundrums differently from typical letters, so that knowledge might cause a player to attack a letters set differently, for better or worse.

Numbers works similarly: The indicators, after the numbers are selected, tells you whether the target is exactly obtainable or not.

Conundrums are the same. No way to adapt this idea to those rounds.

I don't know, I might be drunk off my ass and this is a fucking idiotic idea (with coding issues, to boot) but I'd figure there's no harm in throwing it out there.

The %age of rounds where there is actually a 9 being what it is might make this a little redundant though because it's so similar to the regular format.

However, it does give rise to an idea that may have been mentioned already on here.. that you get told the max as soon as the ninth letter appears, and then conundrum rules take over with the first person getting a word of that length winning the round.

Yeah I still like this idea, but it would be pretty difficult to actually implement.

[Thomas Carey]

I have an idea for a letters (maybe you could join it on to Nasty Letters) where each letter has an equal chance of appearing and there is no limit to how many of each letter come out. (Obviously you can still pick vowels and consonants.)

Also: Touchbling?
EDIT: Touchblind!

[Soph K]

I have an idea for a letters (maybe you could join it on to Nasty Letters) where each letter has an equal chance of appearing and there is no limit to how many of each letter come out. (Obviously you can still pick vowels and consonants.)

Also: Touchbling?
EDIT: Touchblind!

Touchbling and touchblind, how would they work? (Or did you just mean Touchblind, not Touchbling?)

[Charlie Reams]

I have an idea for a letters (maybe you could join it on to Nasty Letters) where each letter has an equal chance of appearing and there is no limit to how many of each letter come out. (Obviously you can still pick vowels and consonants.)

That's pretty much the case with Touchdown already, there's a slightly greater weight on the nice letters just to make it interesting but the distribution is pretty flat overall.

[Thomas Carey]

I have an idea for a letters (maybe you could join it on to Nasty Letters) where each letter has an equal chance of appearing and there is no limit to how many of each letter come out. (Obviously you can still pick vowels and consonants.)

Also: Touchbling?
EDIT: Touchblind!

Touchbling and touchblind, how would they work? (Or did you just mean Touchblind, not Touchbling?)

Yes, I just meant touchblind. (Touchbling was a typo)

[Soph K]

I have an idea for a letters (maybe you could join it on to Nasty Letters) where each letter has an equal chance of appearing and there is no limit to how many of each letter come out. (Obviously you can still pick vowels and consonants.)

Also: Touchbling?
EDIT: Touchblind!

Touchbling and touchblind, how would they work? (Or did you just mean Touchblind, not Touchbling?)

Yes, I just meant touchblind. (Touchbling was a typo)

Right, well how would Touchblind work? What is it cross between? Touchdown and...?

[Thomas Carey]

Err... blind?

[Soph K]

Err... blind?

lol course but what is blind???